eight-foot mangrove trees on the island, so thick you couldn t get on to the island. you could only drive around the islands, couldn t actually get on the islands. it was covered with birds. cat island was one of the barrier islands off the coast of louisiana that saw the most damage from the oil spill. cat island was ground zero to the oil spill. there s a series of barrier islands that run along the louisiana coast. what happened was the oil came along the west side of the mississippi river, came through what they call quatro bayou pass and as they came through the little islands were there to greet them. not that there s a good time for the oil spill, but it was the worst time because the birds were nesting at that time so you had the pelicans and shore birds and a variety of other birds using the islands at the time to nest, and, unfortunately, the oil was coming in so thick that as it covered the mangrove, it would kill the mangrove trees and the other vegetation that were o
out, there may have been more of an intensity to save cat island? i believe more intensity to get more equipment down here because we re being told there s a lot of equipment. the problem is they would leave land, load up their boats, and by the time they got on the water it was 11:00 in the morning, and then they only worked until 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon and by the time they got dark they were coming back off. the locals people that were locally hired, those guys worked until the middle of the night, wore lamps on their head just to go out and collect the oil. off the coast of louisiana, barriers islands provide a sanctuary for wildlife. little groups of islands, they were anywhere between four to six acres in size and there were pelicans and various other types of birds, even endangered species using those islands to nest.e they are far away from any type of predators. now, they had seven to
so might the migratory birds that have made the island their breeding ground. we ve lost of the pelican which is our state bird back in the 60s due to ddt. louisiana s only got six bird islands left and they are all disappearing. u.s. wildlife and fisheries did studies on the birds and discovered that what happens is when these birds are born on these islands, they imprint to those islands. they will come back every year year after year to those same islands. they are going to move where they have to move. it s just that you know we re running out of operations for them to go to. if we don t start rebuilding these islands and it s the small little habitat for them we re going to lose the pelican again because of habitat. there is a massive effort now being put forth to restore this to bring it back to its nature position. so your goal is to rebuild cat island? absolutely. which is going to take how much? $6 billion. we ve been able to raise $3 million, and we ve got a
to fall apart because there s nothing to keep the root systems. sure, and then the erosion takes place. and then the could be stant wave action and erosion from different storms or just the natural wind and wave action that hit these islands and probing them apart. can you believe what you re looking at right now? i m shocked. it s really gut-wrenching. this is all that s left of cat island? this is it. right off the islands when you get into shallow water and the prop starts to run aground a little bit, it kicks up the ground, and this is what comes to the surface. you can actually smell the oil. it s literally amazing. the prop went through there with the two engines, kicked up the surface and there s the oil. it comes right to the surface, and it stinks. birds are still on these islands coming in here and feeding, so you can just imagine the contamination that takes place within the wildlife. as the island slowly disappears